My Mind's Eye Blog

2011 Holiday Hoopla Day 5

Sharing the Light.

Candles are a big part of my celebrations at this time of year - I have a lot and love the feeling they give to an event.I love to personalize them with ribbons and jewels but this year I thought I would try to add stamps to the mix.

The easiest and neatest way to do this is with tissue paper. You design your image on the tissue paper and then adhere it to the candle by melting the wax.

Supplies:

My Minds Eye Stamps - I used "12 Days of Christmas", "Lost & Found Christmas" and the 'so happy' stamp (one of my all time favs) from The Lost & Found 2 Breeze collection.

My Minds Eye Ribbons from Lost and Found two collection.

Heat Gun, Ink Pads and some Tissue paper - mine was recycled from a package but you can buy some or ask a crockery store nicely for a sheet as it goes a long way.

The great thing about this technique is that it is so versatile and easy to do. One of the big parts of my celebrations is remembering that that have passed and to celebrate their lives.

So I used more stamps and then wrote on the name of the person. I then cut out the image as I did not need to cover the whole candle.

The possibilities are endless: think of weddings and birthdays. You can even draw your own images or the kids doodles. Print out photographs onto the tissue paper - just tape down all the edges on a piece of regular printer paper and set it to transparency.

Just remember that the colour of the wax will change the colour of your image so my colours that looked bright on the white tissue became muted with the cream candle wax.

Decorate and add final touches. I used tiny pins to hold in the ribbon and you can add adhesive jewels too. just remember to removed them before the candle flame reaches them or they might burn and cause a fire hazard.

I hope you are enjoying these creative days.

Just like the past few days, leave a comment on Anam's blog post and we will pick one winner who will receive the stamp sets and trims that Anam used!  We will announce the winner on Monday, December 26, 2011.

November Word of the Month

Sunshine by Jana Eubank 

"Sunshine" seems like a strange word of the month for November considering it's the month the weather really starts to turn cold. :) But when I saw the quote on the Lost & Found Two die cut card, it is exactly how I feel about my kids. They truly are the sunshine in my life, and I am so thankful for them. They brighten my day with their funny antics and unique personalities. They make life interesting and a joy to live! I used the beautiful Lost and Found Two collection for this page. The yellow, natural, and black color combination of the Sunshine range complimented my sepia-toned photos wonderfully. The papers have such a classic and timeless appeal about them. They make the memory I'm recording that much more "special" and "important" with their beautiful design. I can't help but reach for this collection again and again. It's just BEAUTIFUL!

Family by Karen Grunberg

Stamping in the Rain

The UK is known around the world for its rainy days and its certainly been proving that these last few weeks. So to pass the time, i've been playing with the stamps from the My Minds Eye Christmas releases - Lost & Found Christmas and 12 Days of Christmas.

As you know by now, I love using stamps on layouts to make backgrounds nearly more than using stamps for feature images and that often is the way it works for my cards too!

I tend to try and keep things very simple with my cards as they are often sent through the postal system so they need to be as flat as possible but that doesnt mean completely flat - I am addicted to foam adhesive and a little can go a long way.

I have been lucky to have great friends who gifted me a new heat gun as I had to leave mine in Canada (different power supplies) so I've been a bit embossing powder happy :)

Often I get an idea and play with it to see if it works as well on paper as in my head - I think I've working on a 75% success rate - the biggest thing with stamping is to play and play with the images and textures you can make.

This is one of my favourites becuase it took a round image but instead of me using a circle punch, I went with a heart punch to try and create a theme with shapes rather than the actual image.

I am though addicted to this Tree stamp from the Lost and Found Christmas set - It is just perfect to me and doesnt need much to set it off to be gorgeous.

But if you struggle with whole sheets to stamp with, start with tags - I do this a lot and often they can make a card or layout just that little bit special.

Also you can stamp backgrounds and then cut them to shape - like these baubels.

Please remember if you are doing cards for Operation Write home - NO GLITTER or sparkles.

and if you are sick of christmas cards, here is something using the butterfly from the Lost and Found Blush stamp set and a tiny shrinkiedink (aka shrink plastic) tag.Thats also just one stamp pad - basically ink up your stamp, stamp and then stamp again (and again if you want) - this gives you a dark and a light image from one inking.

So I hope you have a little starting point to use your stamps - I'd love to see what you have done with them either here or on the My Minds Eye Facebook page.

Thank you!

Designer: Suzanne Sergi; Featured Collection: Kraft Funday – Happy Day

 

Designer: Amber Packer; Featured Collection: Lost & Found 2 – Sunshine

I have family members who have served in the Marines, Army and the Air Force.  I am grateful for their sacrifice and the sacrifice of so many others.  Thank you!

Welcome Lori Allred!

We are pleased to announce our November Guest Designer: Lori Allred!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be invited as the Guest Designer for November. If ever there was a blog I stalk and designers I am inspired by often, it would be here at My Minds Eye. I’ve always found it easy to create with the great options My Minds Eye offers with their collections and my love of all things My Minds Eye started years and years ago with their adorable Frame Ups. And to prove it, here’s a few layouts from long, long ago:

I’ve always enjoyed playing with paper, but started my journey into scrapbooking the way we know it now about 16 years ago when my oldest was a baby. Aside from single handedly keeping My Mind’s Eye in business by purchasing every release they come out with, my relationship with My Mind’s Eye started when I had the opportunity to design samples for them for trade shows and catalogs quite a while back.

As for my background, I’ve designed and worked for several different scrapbook related companies and you can find me blogging for a few these days. My expertise is social media and yes, I do get paid to Facebook. But I’m horrible at blogging for myself. You can find a lot of my work for projects or past publication on my blog at allreddesign.net. Here’s a couple projects I created earlier in the year (for Cricut).

As for working in this industry, my first love is teaching and this past year I’ve been to New Zealand and all over the US teaching classes to others like you that love crafting with beautiful papers. But lately you will find me working with My Craft Channel <link: http://www.mycraftchannel.com>. This new project gives me the great opportunity to work with many inspiring crafters from all types of genres and I LOVE IT!

Here are a few of my more recent My Minds Eye creations and I look forward to sharing more later on in the month!

Let’s welcome Lori in style!  Leave a comment welcoming Lori to the team on this blog post before Thursday, November 10 at midnight.  One lucky winner will WIN Lori’s favorite My Mind’s Eye things!

Laura’s Style

I have had so much fun hanging out on the My Mind's Eye blog this month, as the October Guest Designer! I have always loved MME products, ever since I first started scrapbooking, which was forever ago. And even though I tend to work MME products onto my layouts, in my day to day scrapping, it was a fun change to focus entirely on their products for some of my newest projects. I have appreciate everyone's sweet comments on my work too. So I'm sending out a big "thanks" to everyone of you!

So, what is my style? Well, when I'm asked to pin-point my style, I usually call it "Clean & Linear". I think my layouts are very organized and laid out in a way, that it's not too busy looking. I'm really big on straight lines, and perfect measurements. But maybe adding a few things, with a little tilt, for some visual interest. I love bright and fun colors, and I adore my pattern paper. I also love my embellishments, and adding simple little touches to my layouts. I like to call myself a "lazy scrapper", since I love to just premade embellishments. Anything that I can simply pull out of a package, and add to my layouts, is a plus in my book!

This layout incorporates all my favorites, when it comes to scrapbooking. Bright and fun colors? Check. Lots of pattern paper? Check. I choose papers that have my favorite colors to work with. Aqua, red, green, brown, and yellow. My favorite combination. Premade products, that are easy to work with? Check. Love the die cut titles, and journaling cards, for quick and easy assembly. I even dug out this super old MME butterfly die cut from my stash. Fun embellishments? Check. My all time favorites are brads and buttons. And MME makes some of the cutest brads and buttons I've ever seen. I think these colored pearl brads are my new favorite brads! All of these items combined, to create a fun layout about our day trip to the county fair, two years ago. I'm so glad that I finally got around to scrapping these.

I tend to mix and match products from different manufactures a lot, in my design process. And I tend to do the same, within the manufactures. I love to pull from all different collections, and find pieces that go well together. For this layout, I mixed papers from the Good Day Sunshine collection and the Fine And Dandy collection. All my embellishments were pulled from the different Lost and Found collections.

Thank you My Mind's Eye, Amber, and all the lovely girls on the Design Team, for the opportunity to join you all this month. I truly appreciate it!

Laura Vegas 

Blog Challenge 28: Layout

Wow! What a fun week it has been sharing our newest releases with you! We hope you have had a chance to enter to win them. If you haven’t, scroll down to the four posts below this one.

The challenge: Design a LAYOUT based on this wonderful sketch and use “FALL” as your theme (sketch by Anam Stubbington).

The rules: Use ANY My Mind’s Eye products (current or past) as long as your project has at least 80% My Mind’s Eye products.

The deadline: Add a link to your project to the bottom of this post using inlinkz by Sunday, October 23, 2011 (midnight, MST). Please include your first and last name and project name when uploading. (a photo of your layout or project will show directly in the post)

(For tips on how to best photograph your entry, click here)

The PRIZE: The winner will receive three ENTIRE collections of their choice! We will also award an honorable mention winner with one collection of their choice! All winners will be featured in a blog post and have bragging rights!

Three of our designers have shared samples with you to help you get your creative juices going!

 

Favorite Fall Photos by Laura Vegas 

Featured Collection: Lime Twist, Alphabet Soup and Lost & Found 2 

I love fall colors, so this challenge was right up my alley. I choose a few favorite photos of me and my daughters, from a few years back, for this fall layout. I went through my stash of My Mind's Eye pattern papers, and choose papers my favorite fall colors. Brown, blue, yellow, orange, and cream. The burlap trim adds lots of texture to the layout, while the buttons add a nice homespun feel to it. I used the transparency photo frame, for a journaling block, and added my journaling strips to the inside. While I had all my papers and embellishments out, I whipped up a quick fall card, using the same elements as my layout (see post below).

 

Find Joy Every Day by Suzanne Sergi 

Featured Collection: Mischievous 

For this challenge, I decided to pull out some of these fall photos of my oldest daughter. Even though the Mischievous line is a Halloween theme collection, the color palette is perfect to document fall moments, too. I stayed pretty true to the sketch, but added an envelope in place of one of the photos. This envelope was perfect to tuck in my journaling. I love the houndstooth pattern, and punched a hole in the envelope, so this fun pattern peeked through. This helped balance the cluster of circles on the right side of the page. For the final fall detail, I added the beautiful fall bloom onto the envelope, and a bit of the gorgeous burlap ribbon My Mind's Eye added to their product line.

 

 

Granddad by Anam Stubbington

Featured Collection: Lost & Found 2

We love Anam’s layout in beautiful, fall colors and what a wonderful celebration and expression of thankfulness for a special Granddad!

 

We look forward to seeing your entry!  Upload it here:

Blog Challenge 28: Card

Wow!  What a fun week it has been sharing our newest releases with you!  We hope you have had a chance to enter to win them.  If you haven’t, scroll down to the three posts below this one.

The challenge: Design a card based on this wonderful sketch and use “FALL” as your theme (sketch by Anam Stubbington).

The rules: Use ANY My Mind’s Eye products (current or past) as long as your project has at least 80% My Mind’s Eye products.

The deadline: Add a link to your project to the bottom of this post using inlinkz by Sunday, October 23, 2011 (midnight, MST).  Please include your first and last name and project name when uploading.  (a photo of your layout or project will show directly in the post)

(For tips on how to best photograph your entry, click here)

The PRIZE: The winner will receive the collection of their choice and will be featured in a blog post and have bragging rights!

Check out these beautiful samples created by our design team:

 

Fall card by: Laura Vegas

Featured Collection: Alphabet Soup 

I love fall colors, so this challenge was right up my alley. I choose a few favorite photos of me and my daughters, from a few years back, for this fall layout. I went through my stash of My Mind's Eye pattern papers, and choose papers my favorite fall colors. Brown, blue, yellow, orange, and cream. The burlap trim adds lots of texture to the layout, while the buttons add a nice homespun feel to it. I used the transparency photo frame, for a journaling block, and added my journaling strips to the inside. While I had all my papers and embellishments out, I whipped up a quick fall card, using the same elements as my layout.

 

Autumn Time by: Suzanne Sergi

Featured Collection: Mischievous

For this card, I also used the Mischievous line to create a card perfect for welcoming the fall. To soften the card I did add a bit of the shabby blue against the orange backdrop, and a white doily for an extra layer.. I really enjoyed playing with this sketch, and it helped this card come together quickly.

 

Happy Day card by Anam Stubbington

Featured Collection: Lost & Found 2 

What a beautiful card Anam created using soft, FALL colors and a theme appropriate not only for fall, but any time of the year as well!

 

Please add your entry here:

 

Welcome Laura Vegas!

Hey everyone! My name is Laura Vegas, and I was so excited when I got an email asking me to be the October Guest Designer! I have always been a huge fan of My Mind’s Eye products, all the way back to the little kid die cuts from forever ago (which I’m 99% sure we still have in the closet somewhere). I love My Mind’s Eye’s pattern papers, because of their texture and thickness, and great tone-on-tone patterns. And their embellishments make it so easy to add lots of fun details to my projects.

 

A little bit about me. I live in Manteca, California. People never know where that is. So I usually explain that I live about 90 minutes East of San Francisco, and 60 minutes South of Sacramento. Those cities are more recognizable than my little city. I live with my husband, Joe, who works as a Night Crew Manager in grocery, and also umpires baseball as a side-job, about 10 months out of the year. We have two girls, Alyssa (15) and Sarah (12), who are great sports about being in front of my camera at a moment’s notice. I spend lots and lots of time driving the girls to and from all of their school and sporting activities, and we can usually be found on the soccer field on the weekends. I work as a Daycare Provider, out of our home, which allows me to always be around for my girls. We all love my daycare kids to pieces, and they truly become little extensions of our family.

I started out scrapbooking almost 17 years ago. That piece of information just really dated me, didn’t it? LOL. I began, like so many of us did, with Creative Memories. My layouts had pen-doodled borders and titles, tons of Mrs. Grossman stickers, and photos cut into circles and ovals, using 7 different deckled edged scissors. About 10 years later, and after a huge progression in my style, I started teaching classes at a local scrapbook store. Around this same time, I started submitting to magazines and contests, and managed to have just a teensy tiny bit of luck with those. After teaching for a little over 2 years, the local scrapbook store decided to close their doors, and I put more energy into establishing myself within the scrapbooking industry.

Now-a-days, my scrapbooking is definitely more of a part time job, than just a hobby. But it’s a job that I LOVE doing! I’m very driven by assignments and deadlines, and I actually have a hard time scrapbooking without them now. I’m a professional procrastinator, and I seem to create my best when I leave things until the very last minute.

I am hugely driven by product, bright and fun colors, and great photos. I will either start a layout with great photos in mind, or by product that I am dying to use. My journaling is almost always the last thing that I add to a layout, and I never plan what I am going to say, until I have my title on the page to guide me. My favorite things to create are layouts, but I enjoy making cards as well. Altered projects and mini albums are my least favorite, although when forced to do them, they’re usually not half bad.

If you’d like to learn more about me, and see more of my work, visit my blog at www.lauravegas.typepad.com.

Let’s welcome Laura as our Guest Designer this month.  Leave a comment on this post by Sunday, October 9, 2011 at midnight.  We will randomly select one winner to win Laura’s favorite My Mind’s Eye things!

Caught Our Eye: Nadine Wachter

When blog reader, Nadine Wachter, heard her local scrapbook store had received their Lost & Found 2 shipment in, she ran right over to get her hands on it!  Within a few days, she had created 6 layouts and 6 cards!  We are featuring two of her beautiful layouts today.

We love the way Nadine clustered the Sunshine brads in this layout.

Nadine’s “helpless” layout is beautiful, yes.  More importantly it reminds us how important it is to not only document people and events but feelings, emotions and trials.

Thank you, Nadine!